Let’s start with a really big question, that I don’t have a hope of answering in a few hundred words.

Permaculture is actually two words squished together: permanent and agriculture. The term was coined many moons ago by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, and if you’d like to dive deeper, then David Holmgren has an excellent website and gives his explanation here.

The Australian climate, where permaculture was born, is known for being harsh. Those of us lucky enough to have some space to grow in, here in Spain, know that the environment here can be harsh too. It should be said that Spain is a vast country, with hugely different microclimates: the south can be as hot as Africa, where I live on the east coast, we have very little annual rain, and more northerly regions may struggle with freezing in the winter. You can find out more about the regional climates here.

Permaculture offers a way of looking at the world, YOUR particular world, and adapting how you design your space to get the most out of it with the least amount of effort.

Traditional permaculture often uses animals as part of the design (like keeping chickens), but as I’m vegan, that doesn’t work for me, so the ideas and principles I will be sharing here, won’t include animal systems. However, animals are very welcome in the garden, so I’ll probably introduce you to the ones who have chosen to live here!

‘Veganic’ or ‘stock-free’ means that I endeavour not to use any animal ‘inputs’ (such as manure, blood, bone etc) in order to grow food in my food forest. You can read more about what is involved from various places including The Vegan Organic Network, Helen Atthowe and Spiralseed (where I studied the Online Permaculture Design Certificate with Graham Burnett. There are many others, and I plan to start a resources page here to link to useful information.

By following permaculture principles we can also reduce our impact on the wider world, by being careful how we use our resources. Understanding the garden more holistically means we can leave the majority of the ‘pest’ control and soil fertility to Mother Nature, leaving us time to enjoy our beautiful world!

This isn’t a '“No work” ideology but allows us to plan our work so that we don’t have to keep re-doing things, and promotes the idea of using our resources in many ways to get the best value from them.

As I’m writing this, I’m aware that it all sounds a bit vague, a bit hypothetical, but that’s only because it’s a good idea to look at the ‘big picture’ first. I hope that as time goes on, I can be more specific about all of the things I’ve said here, and it will all become clearer.

Please join up for my monthly email newsletter, where I will share news from the garden, and offer useful ideas and resources to help you on your Vegan Permaculture in Spain journey.